Historical Maps of Indonesia Online

About the Maps

In addition to the maps in this atlas, a great many older maps of Indonesia are now available for consultation on the websites of libraries with major collections of cartographic material on Indonesia. This section of the Digital Atlas provides stable internet links to some of the more interesting and useful maps which are accessible online.

The maps included in this directory were drawn by Westerners, and they provide an important insight into evolving western geographical knowledge of the archipelago. These maps are held in the collections of five institutions (see below). Not all maps of the Indonesian archipelago held in these collections have been linked here; the online catalogue of each of the libraries provides links to additional maps. At the time of publication, all the maps linked from this atlas were available for viewing on the Web in high resolution. In some cases, however, a charge was payable for downloading an image. Although it is believed that the links provided in this section are stable, neither permanence nor uninterrupted access can be guaranteed.

Maps are organized under the subjects shown in the sidebar. Collection details are as follows.

More than 10,000 maps of the Dutch colonies (Surinam and the Dutch Antilles, as well as Indonesia) have been digitized. The collection can be searched from a maps page by place-name and category (topographic maps, thematic maps etc.) and accessed by subject searching through the main online catalogue. Viewing the maps is free, but a charge is currently made for downloading.

The National Library has digitized some hundreds of early maps of the Australian region, including many maps of the Indonesian archipelago. The maps can be accessed both through the online catalogue and through a dedicated maps page. Maps can be downloaded free of charge.

Hosted by the Library of the University of Berne, the Ryhiner Collection contains 16,000 images of maps from various parts of the world from the 16th to the 19th century. They are organized by region, and several categories include maps referring to Indonesia:

Gallica, the online library of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, provides access to maps and other images from early books, including some dealing with Indonesia. Resolution is poorer than in the other collections used here, but the black and white images are nonetheless often very useful.

The State Library contains a significant collection of rare maps, including some relating to Indonesia. The maps can be accessed both through the SLNSW online catalogue and through an index to the exhibition ‘Crux – rare maps from the State Library of NSW’. The maps can be downloaded free of charge but the resolution is constrained by a relatively small viewing frame.